Washington: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he saw people cheering the Sept. 11 attacks across the river in New Jersey - a claim officials strongly deny.
Trump first told the story Saturday at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, as he pressed the need for greater surveillance, including monitoring certain mosques, in the wake of the Paris attacks.
"I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering," Trump said Saturday at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama.
Trump repeated the assertion Sunday in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," as Stephanopoulos explained to Trump that police had refuted any such rumors at the time.
"It did happen. I saw it," said Trump. "It was on television. I saw it."
"There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down," he said.
